Staffer tweets Landrieu-Mussolini pic

A conservative blog in Louisiana on Thursday posted an image of Sen. Mary Landrieu’s face superimposed on the body of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini — and an hour later, the campaign manager of Landrieu’s main opponent next year, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), tweeted out a link to the post.

The Hayride blog on Louisiana politics featured an entry — under the headline, “Mary Voted To Kill The Filibuster Today…” — about Landrieu’s vote with fellow Democrats to invoke the so-called nuclear option, which changed Senate rules to prevent filibusters against most presidential nominations. The photo, which was uploaded to the site with the filename “MussoLandrieu,” accompanied the story.

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“Landrieu was with Harry Reid in this rather fascistic endeavor,” the blog stated. “She was with the idea of trampling all over the rights of the Senate minority and keeping that body a deliberative one. Instead, the Senate has gone a long way toward becoming just another version of the House of Representatives — a transition expressly forbidden by the framers of the Constitution.”

Joel DiGrado, Cassidy’s campaign manager, tweeted a link to the blog item. DiGrado did not respond to several emails seeking comment.

The incident came two days after the National Republican Senatorial Committee tweeted a photo of Kentucky Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes’s face on the body of “Obama Girl,” the model whose videos about her “crush” on Obama went viral during the 2008 election. The NRSC apologized for the tweet and said Tuesday that “disciplinary action has been taken” against the junior staffer who posted it.

Landrieu’s campaign condemned the blog post’s photo.

“Louisiana politics is colorful and spicy, but this picture is downright despicable and disrespectful. Simply tweeting the image was bad enough, but refusing to take it down now is even worse,” campaign manager Adam Sullivan said in a statement. “The Cassidy campaign owes an apology to Sen. Landrieu and should immediately take down this hurtful reminder of one of the worst and most horrific events in world history.”